August 22, 2020 • 34 mins
Almost three percent of Americans suffer from a debilitating disorder that causes them to suffer intense fear seemingly without reason and science hasn’t yet figured out what causes it. Join Josh and Chuck in this classic episode as they get to the bottom of panic attacks.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everyone. From October to two, fourteen, my Saturday Select
pick for the week. That's how panic attacks work. This
is very sad and serious stuff. Everybody. Panic attacks are terrifying.
They are a real deal stuff. I've never had one.
I've had friends and family members that have had them,
and uh, it's tough stuff. So if you suffer from
(00:21):
them or have friends or family that do, why don't
you give it a listen? And maybe this will help
out or at least bring a better understanding about how
panic attacks work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
(00:45):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Child's w
Chuck Bryant, and Jerry. So it's stuff you should know. Yep,
why it's spread panic? Yeah? Did you see that video? No?
Which one? There was a dude. This is just like
two days ago went up on stage and attacked the band.
Oh no, I didn't see that. Yeah, and they've got
the whole thing. And it was during one of the
(01:06):
really repetitive droning parts of a song. And uh, I
haven't seen an explanation but that there was. I went
to the widespread Panic Facebook thing because it was a
big thread about people talking about it and I just said,
herod people gang violing me, going hero that's hilarious. I
(01:26):
thought it was pretty funny. He attacked the members of
the band, yeah, like physically, and I couldn't quite attack
the drummer and he was upset and I don't know
if that part of the song made him snap, but
it was definitely one of those repetitive thank thank over.
He's like stop. But he was at the show, so
(01:47):
that'd be weird unless he went there to attack them. Yeah,
it was probably the Bath Salts maybe, so, so we're
not talking about that kind of panic. That's more a
psychotic break And this is not widespread at all. It's
very individualized panic, it is, but it turns out people
suffering from this is kind of widespread. How about that?
(02:09):
So it fits a little bit sure. Instead, um, we're
talking about panic attacks and the combination of panic attacks
or the culmination of panic attacks that can lead to
something called panic disorder, and it is a sucky mental
condition that about two point eight percent of Americans, which
(02:32):
is a pretty significant amount of people. Yeah, that's that's
more than bipolar which we've covered in schizophrenia, yeah, and
O c D, which we well, we've covered all three
of those. Um, so that's a pretty significant amount of
people who suffer from panic disorder, right, But that's different
than just plain old panic attacks. Even though to have
(02:52):
panic disorder you have to have panic attacks, but if
you have panic attacks, you don't necessarily have panic disorder exactly.
And I've had two experiences which I'll talk about at
some point through the show, not personally, but Emily had
a panic attack once and uh Frien in college had
a panic attack a roommate and neither one of them
have panic disorders. It was just an isolated incident. Yeah,
(03:14):
so apparently that's I don't know if commons the right word,
but people do have panic attacks and they but they
they that might be the only one they ever have
for their entire lives, I hope. So, which makes the
whole thing kind of mysterious. And we should say, like
science does not know what exactly is going on here.
They have some theories, but there's there's no there's no
(03:37):
way to predict what's happening. They don't even know if
it's genetic or what environmental. Well, they finally isolated a
gene last year, Uh, I guess and go and talk
about that now. In December they isolated the gene and
you know, genes are always so boring with their names,
unless it's a Simmons. That's right. The n k r
(03:58):
T three they think may be responsible, um, because its
presence appears to cause an overestimation of fear and danger
in an overactivation of the hippocampus and amygdala. So basically,
if you have this gene, you're gonna exaggerate your fear overall. Okay,
but it's not like they're saying they've proved that's the cause.
(04:20):
But that is a good step in scientifically in the
right direction. That's a huge step, because I mean that
does sound very much like what a panic attack is.
A panic attack is where you experience a very pronounced
sense of fear and basically your fight or flight symptoms
response and really, from what I can understand, your flight response. Yeah,
(04:44):
like you're not in a position to fight or freeze,
because you know now these days it's fight, flight or freeze.
Really yeah, I don't think I knew that. Yeah there's
a third option now, um like kind of yeah, oh
no way, those aren't options that's a sequence, right, This
is these are a when you're confronted with danger. Nick
Thune or Buddy the comedian, dude, have you seen his
(05:05):
hand of fit ads? Yeah? Those are awesome. Yeah. I
was like, that's Nick Thune and he's on like Miss America. Yeah.
The first thing I always think about is good for
you cash those checks? Baby? Uh yeah. He has that
funny bit on stop dropping rolling, like they they needed
to continue that, like keep rolling. He's like, that's kind
of key. You don't stop dropping roll because you'll be
(05:26):
consumed by fire. You need to keep rolling right until
you get to a door. Yeah, it's very funny stuff.
So this is a little different fight flight or freeze.
Yeah what what's so? How does freeze factor in? Like
you just freeze up and toasts. Yeah, that at least
beneficial of all of the these adaptations to danger. But basically,
(05:47):
when you're when you're confronted with danger, you can either fight, fly,
or freeze. That makes total sense. I don't know why
freeze was never in there to begin with, because so
many people freeze. They just added on the last couple
of years. I think I'm a liar or a freezer
for sure. It depends. I don't know if do you
think there's a personality type. Oh boy, I don't know. Um,
you know, don't you think it's possibly like just what
(06:08):
your body chemistry happens to be doing? Right then? No?
I think some people are more inclined to fight for sure. Okay, Well,
with panic attacks, you're flying like that's your only that's
your jam right there. Um, And you're experiencing it in
the exact same way that somebody's coming to mug you
or has pulled a knife on you and you're running away,
(06:29):
or there's a lion chasing you. Accept and this is
the key to panic attack. There is no lion, there
is no mugger, there's no knife, there's no discernible reason
for you to be experiencing this sudden onset of crippling fear. Um.
But you're experiencing it nonetheless, that's right. No, no tangible
(06:51):
thing happening right in that moment. Right. So when you
come out of it, and these things can they peak
within about ten minutes, but these the symptoms can last
for an hour more. Um. When you come out of it,
you're like, I don't ever want that to happen again.
The place that this just happened to, say, the park
(07:11):
I'm never going back to because now I associated with this.
Because what you're doing when you experience fear, you're learning
to stay away from something. Yeah, So, whether you want
to or not, you've just been conditioned to fear the
place that you just were because you had a panic attack. Um.
And then lastly, you think possibly you're crazy, yeah, or
having a heart attack. Yeah, that's uh. Both both of
(07:34):
the my wife and my friend both thought they were
having heart attacks, which is super scary. And we'll get
the difference later on. But um, I guess we should
talk about just some of the initial symptoms of a
panic attack. The old d s M Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual Mental Disorders lists, Uh, it looks like about ten
(07:54):
symptoms and if you have at least four of these,
you may be having a panic attack, which is heart pounding, shaking, dizziness, sweating, choking,
feeling nausea, shallow or short breath, chest pain, numbness or tingling, chills,
and hot flashes, feeling of unreality, feeling like you're going crazy,
or feeling like you're about to die. You got four
(08:15):
of those, you're having a panic attack. Yes, um, and
if you have four panic attacks within four weeks, or
you have one panic attack and then fear having another
panic attack for about a month or so, then you
can be diagnosed with what's called panic disorder. So, uh,
(08:37):
if you listen to our fear podcast, which was a
really good one, UM, it's kind of the same as
a panic attack. Um, we covered your Your autonomic nervous
system is what maintains all the functions in your body,
the involuntary functions in your body, that is, and it's
gonna take signals from your central nervous system. It's gonna
(08:57):
regulate your organs. That's why you don't have to tell
your heart beat or your kid needs to work. It's
all your pancreas to secrete stuff. That's right. It's your
autonomic nervous system. And it has two parts, the sympathetic
and parasympathetic. And your parasympathetic controls like I said, your
your heartbeat and stuff like that. The normal aspect, Yeah,
(09:19):
it's just like stasis, right, Yeah, that balance that we
all seek that we don't know we're seeking. And then
the sympathetic is if you have that fight or flight,
if you become excited. Uh, in any way, really, that's
when that's going to kick in. Yeah, it's like normal
gear and then high gear. Yeah. But it's not always fear,
you know, just any kind of excitement. Right, you could
be super happy, it could be sexual arousal. That's all
(09:42):
your sympathetic nervous system, right, and those two components make
up the autonomic nervous system, which it kind of switches
from one to the other depending on your state of arousal. Right,
that's right. Um, But when fear has aroused you, um,
your sympathetic nervous system kicks into high gear. Um, and
adrenaline is released, which is a huge factor in causing
(10:04):
the symptoms of a panic attack. Like you start breathing
very heavily and shallowly. Um, your pupils dilate you. Uh.
We always used to say if you're digesting food, you
stop doing that. Basically, all of your energy is transferred
over to either fighting or flying, and in the case
of a panic attack, is transferred over to get you
(10:26):
to be able to run away as fast as possible. Yeah,
which can be a little scary, but in a real
fear situation, if you're in danger, your parasympathetic nervous system
is going to kick in and calm you down. But
that is not what happens, uh in the case of
a panic attack, which is really perplexing. So let's recap this.
A panic attack is when you experience this incredibly intense fear,
(10:50):
so much so that you run away, but there's nothing
there to be afraid of. And then and then, to
make everything a million times worse, your parasympathetic nervous system
doesn't kick in and calm you down like it would
under normal circumstances, so you get to experience this horrible
thing even longer. That's right, all right. So, like I
(11:31):
said before, breaking news from December of last year, they
think they've isolated a gene. Previous to that, they've some
research has said it could be genetic because identical twins
experience it more than fraternal twins, but it's always been
sort of up in the air. They's been contradictions as
well of the genetic basis. They think it's also possibly
(11:53):
epigenetic or environmental like um. Apparently, one study found that
a lot of people who have Pannick disorder had some
sort of traumatic incident happened in their childhood. My friend
from college did, Is that right? So they're thinking like
possibly it had some sort of effect and set up
like a time bomb for later on in life. Yeah,
the stored uh feelings that maybe you've never dealt with
(12:17):
about some traumatic event are gonna they're gonna rear their
head at some point in your life in some way. Yeah.
Or it just rearranged the neural output in your brain
so that one day you're just set up when everything
is just right, that chemistry is flooding your brain in
a certain way, and then bam, it comes out of
nowhere you have a panic attack. Yeah. Another theory is
(12:40):
that they think if you have an over active fear system,
like you've basically have been scared too much in life,
or you're a scared person, then it's just gonna make
it a hair trigger for something to set it off,
which makes a lot of sense. I think it could
be a combo of a lot of things, yeah, as usual. Yeah.
(13:02):
I wonder though what what it will end up being though,
if we'll find that there is one thing that that
leads to this predictably like built up, but then there's
the actual trigger and that's another thing too. So they
don't know what triggers these things. They do know that
a panic attack, being worried about having a panic attack
can actually trigger a panic attack. I feel so bad
(13:25):
for people with panic disorder. This is like a terrible
affliction because you do become very much afraid that you're
going to have another panic attack. So that can set
off a panic attack, but it also can set off
a co morbidity called agoraphobia, where you are afraid to
leave your house, but you're also afraid to be alone.
(13:46):
And I read this, um this article that was from
the eighties seven, and they were saying, like the the Freudists,
the Freudists followers of Sigmund Freud. We're saying, um, oh, well, clearly,
if you're in a gooraphobic you don't want to go
outside because that's where sexual desire is, and you don't
(14:07):
want to be alone because you're worried that you will
like abuse yourself. So agoraphobia. And everybody went boom, sit
down and shut up. Yeah and um, So nowadays they
have realized that agoraphobia is almost almost exclusively the result
of panic disorder. Yeah, and it's because you you fear
(14:32):
the place that you had a panic attack, so you
don't want to go there again. And then maybe it
happened again at the grocery store, so you don't want
to go there, and it happened, but you don't want
to be alone, but you don't want to be around strangers,
so you clean to your family members. And now all
of a sudden, you're not living your life anymore. You're
developing phobias because of your panic attacks in your association
with them. Like if you're on an elevator and you
(14:54):
have a panic attack, you're not getting on an elevator again.
You've just developed a phobia for elevators. And so all
of a sudden, you're not going to be working at
a place where you might normally work because you have
to take the elevator to to get there. Or you
develop a love of stairs, right, but then what if
you're you don't like confined spaces at all, like a
stairwell either. Yeah, have you ever been locked in the
(15:15):
stairwell you're at the building? Yeah, I mean you just
walked down however many flights until you're at the lobby.
Oh you can get out down there? Yes? Okay, yeah, yeah,
you're not actually locked in you just have to walk
all the way down to usually just call you and
say let me. Another theory is that when you're super tired,
um and overworked, was when a lot of times when
(15:38):
these are set off, your brain is producing sodium lactate
or c O two and when those levels increase, your
brain uh says you know what, I think you're suffocating
and so I'm going to send a signal to get
you a lot more oxygen. And I found this, uh
really sad case of this woman, a university student who
(15:59):
died from a severe asthma attack like three days ago. Uh.
And she had had a history of asthma and then
told the medics that she was going through like final
exams and she had been having panic attacks uh for
in the weeks like proceeding. So breathing is a huge
(16:19):
part of panic attacks and as evidenced by her, if
you have asthma, it's can be deadly, which is super
super scary. And said yeah, Um. Then one other I
guess there's a neurological basis they believe for people who
have panic attacks, people who suffer from panic disorder tend
to have fewer serotonin receptors and apparently also um gabba
(16:44):
which helps us get to sleep. It's called a gamma
immuno beautyic acid. Let's call it gabba gabba. Um. Those
two have some sort of role in UM panic disorder.
You don't have enough serotonin and your body is not
producing enough gabba, you may be prone to panic disorder. Uh.
(17:06):
They You know, there isn't like a specific type of
person that necessarily gets a panic attack. It can happen
to anyone, but um, usually it happens if in you
you're in your twenties, although they say kids can get
it as well. Have a panic attack or a disorder. UM.
Twice as many women have a panic disorder developed one
as men, which is pretty interesting. Um. And like you said,
(17:29):
just the fear like having had one before, that fear
can lead to more. So it's very cyclical. Yes, and
you know, um that one paper from seven I can't
tell if it was arguing in favor of panic disorder
being like an evolutionary adaptation and like possibly beneficial, or
if they were saying, like some people think this, can
(17:50):
you believe this? But they were. One of the points
that this guy made was well, twice as many women
have panic disorders as men. So clearly it's an evolutionary
adaptation because women wouldn't have had to have gone as
far away from camp while they were gathering food as men.
Men couldn't stand to have a panic attack, or they couldn't.
(18:13):
It wouldn't be an adaptation for men, it would be
for women. Plus, women can't run as fast when they
have kids to carry, so they need to be on
alert a little more. It's just smelled like bunk yeah, bunk, Yeah,
that's that was a big year for bunk. Yeah. Um,
if you do have a panic disorder, you may have
a hard time getting your family to understand it. Um.
(18:37):
Sometimes they overreact and think it's like way more severe
than it is. Um. Sometimes they underreact and say, uh,
you know, it's all in your head, like just calm down. Um.
But either way saying boy, you're nuts or you just
need to relax, neither one of those is going to
help out the loved one. Chill out. There's no lion.
(18:58):
It wasn't. One thing I've learned in arguments and fights
with my wife is and I'm boil. Learning this early
on is saying telling someone to relax never causes someone
to relax. No, it's like the worst thing you can
do if something's heated is to say just relax. It
is true, that's just gonna ramp it up. So that's
(19:19):
my advice for couples out there in any relationship. Really,
it's good advice, Chuck, thank you. Um. There is a
silver lining to all this in that panic disorder is
actually highly treatables. The treatments that they've come up with
are pretty successful, and we will talk about those treatments
right after this. All right, So you mentioned that they
(19:55):
are treatable. They have found success rates through medication and
therapy which seemed to be about the same as far
as how affective they are, between sixty and nine of
the time. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's not bad at all.
So that's the good news. So there's three there's three
UM typical methods of treatment UM antidepressants, anti anxiety pills,
(20:17):
and therapy. And you might use them, you know, independent
of one another, in conjunction with one another. I also
saw beta blockers. Some people use beta blockers to treat them,
but they're not quite sure what's going on with that.
I've used those before live performances. Those are the ones
I read about that, Um, you gave me one, and
I was like a useless worm. Yeah, it didn't affect
(20:38):
me like that. I I was, I just like totally
lost my personality. I wasn't nervous, but I didn't do anything. Well.
I've gotten used to live performing now, so I don't
need them anymore. But I got that tip from apparently
a bunch of musicians, like in symphonies and stuff use
and I was like, well, if first chair of violinist,
if it's good enough for them to give me some blocks. Yeah,
(21:01):
but it worked for me. But like I said, overall
that I enjoy being on stage now. So with SSR eyes,
which is what you moved on too, from beta blockers, right, No,
I'm not on it. So with SSR eyes, Um, those
are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and they do exactly what
they sound like. You've got a bunch of serotonin receptors
(21:22):
in your brain. If you have panic disorder, you may
have fewer serotonin receptors in your brain. Serotonin is a
neurotransmitter that helps basically stabilize your mood by either causing
a neuron to fire or inhibiting a neuron to fire
in this really beautiful, perfectly balanced chemical reaction. Right, So
(21:42):
if you have a few of these receptors the normal
you're going to be comparatively out of balanced. What an
SSR I and antidepressant does is it allows the serotonin
to kind of stay in your synaps is a little
longer than as normal, so that you are releasing a
little more serotonin then you would under normal circumstances. And
(22:03):
it's proven pretty effective for UM, for panic disorder. Yeah.
I mean they'd work wonders for a lot of people
for a lot of reasons, UM, but not everyone, and
they can cause a lot of negative side effects. Uh.
So obviously you know, work with your doctor on a program,
and it takes them a little while, like two to
four weeks to begin working, uh for a panic attack. UM,
(22:26):
an anti anxiety drug like xan x might be a
little more effective because that is immediately hits you. It
is a tranquilizer benzo diazepine, right yeah, and it's um,
you know, the zanex is going to help chill you
out immediately. But you can get hooked on those things
pretty quick. Yeah, and they're dangerous to quit cold turkey
(22:49):
and UM, Yeah, it's it's not the best thing to
go to zanex a lot. Well, yeah, they say that
you should. Um basically, if you if you under take
an ssr I regimen, you can conceivably stay on it
for years. If you undertake anti anxiety or benzo diazepine regimen, like,
(23:10):
it shouldn't last for more than a couple of weeks
or month from what I understand, because of the dependency.
And again you want to like really do all of
this with like a um, qualified competent doctor's assistants, not
a doctor's assistant, doctor's assistant. It depends. If it's a
qualified competent doctor's assistant who can write prescriptions. Trust, go
(23:34):
for it, that's true. Uh. And then there's therapy, of course,
the old CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, which we've talked about
a bunch but um, that is Uh, they're gonna sort
of the process is going to play out like this.
They're gonna teach you about your panic disorder, which is
a big step. If you understand something, uh, you can
(23:54):
overcome it more easily. I think they're going to monitor
you and you're gonna self monitor and cord your symptoms.
And when they happen, and why they happen, what the
circumstance was. Breathing, like we mentioned, is a huge part
of it. Um Anything from meditation to just regular breathing
exercises which will give you some tips on that in
a minute too, are going to help you out. And
(24:15):
then the old exposure two uh situations. Then this is
once you've rethought, like you're what your approach is going
to be, Like, here's your new outlook, and now here's
a situation that might give you a panic attack. How
do you feel, yeah, Or like if you had a
panic attack and an elevator, like they may tell you
to imagine you're in an elevator, your therapy might progress
(24:37):
until you're actually in an elevator and you're chilling out.
And the hope is that if if you can undergo
exposure therapy to that degree, it will get you over
your panic attacks. In general. Another aspect of it, Chuck,
is rethinking uh, and that is basically accepting the fact
that you have panic attacks. Apparently, if you can say
(25:00):
I'm having a panic attack or I have panic attacks,
and you acknowledge it to yourself and to other people,
it immediately turns down the volume on the whole thing. Yeah,
I noticed some similarities in uh, someone guiding through someone
through an LSD trip and guiding someone through a panic attack.
It's interesting. A lot of it is like understanding, like
(25:21):
I am having an acid trip, I am not having
a good time. It's the same thing as I'm having
a panic attack, and this is no good And if
I understand that, then I can calm down more easily,
and keeping it in just lead you to freak out
more exactly. Um. So that's CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. And um,
(25:41):
if you if you undergo therapy and you're still suffering
from panic attacks. The apparently being discouraged as a real
problem with people with panic disorder because you can still
suffer them even if you're doing everything right. Um. And
so a lot of people have learned to cope, and
there's some any common coping techniques for a panic disorder.
(26:03):
And like you said, the heart of the whole thing
is breathing. Like when you suffer a panic attack, you
start breathing shallowly and quickly, and um, you can hyperventilate.
What you want to do is breathe from your diaphragm
and that you can actually practice this in the times
when you're not having a panic attack. Yeah, if you're
a singer, you know how to breathe with your diaphragm.
(26:25):
But if you're not, what you can do is lie
down on your back, put some pillows on your head
and knees and um, put a hand on your stomach
and a hand on your chest, and then practice breathing, uh,
and making your hand on your stomach move without the
hand on your chest moving, and then tap the hand
on your stomach while you make a circle with the
(26:46):
hand on your chest. When you're really advanced, it's pretty impressive. Uh.
And then another thing you can do is just literally
like put a weight on your stomach and make sure
too heavy. No, like a book. Sure, yeah, look a
nice at something that you can see going up and
down when you're breathing with your diaphragm. That's right. Um,
(27:08):
And you want to just kind of breathe in the
good exhale the bad. Yeah, like I'm having a panic attack.
This will pass, you know, this will subside. This is
a temporary feeling. That's what you should be saying to yourself.
And if you're a person who's like out in public
and you see somebody having a panic attack, you basically
want to do the same thing that they're trying to
do for themselves. You want to remain calm. You want
(27:29):
to tell them that it's going to be over with
pretty soon, that everything's okay, they have nothing to fear. Um. Yeah,
you don't want to tell them to chill out, though. Uh.
Guiding someone through relaxation is different than saying chill out,
by the way, right, very different. Uh. They do recommend
that you, um, if you have a problem with with
(27:51):
attacks in general, or if you have a disorder, you
should exercise a lot. You should practice. Um. They don't
call it meditation, but that's really what it is. Is
is deep breathing and relaxation. It's called mindfulness these days,
isn't it. I don't know. I think that's what they
call it because meditation turns people off probacus. Interesting. Uh
cut cut out the caffeine and sugar and nicotine. Yeah,
(28:14):
that's not gonna help you at all, uh doing all
those things. Uh. And you know, if this stuff is
stuff that's building up inside of you, which it often is,
learn how to express yourself a little more and um
and talk about your issues Um, I know that in
both of my cases. My buddy in college, it was
during finals week and I had gone to bed and
(28:36):
my roommate and another dude had were out in the
living room staying up, and one of him came and
woke me up and he's like, dude, he's having a
heart attack. He's having a heart attack. And um, I
didn't know anything about panic attacks. So we took him
the hospital, of course, and that's all it was. It
was a panic attack. He calmed down. I think, um,
I think they might have given him something there. I
(28:56):
met some sort of medication to calm him down. Probably
Benzo dis Yeah, probably like a good shot in the
arm of that stuff, and he was like, I'm fine. Right.
With Emily's case, she had been under a lot of
stress and was and driving back from Akron, Ohio to Atlanta.
I think she went to get I think she want
to get some furniture or something. So she was in
(29:18):
a truck, like a moving truck, had been drinking caffeine
like crazy like she does, and um, basically, uh started
to have trouble breathing on the highway, going like eighty
down the highway and had to pull over. Called me,
and you know, I calmed her down. I was like,
all right, now, let's get back on the road. See
how you do. She got back on the highway and
(29:39):
immediately freaked out again. And uh, I flew to Cincinnati
and went to a hotel and drove her home. Yeah.
I mean there was really no choice at that point. Uh,
you know, when it's your wife, you plus, it was
a good opportunity to get on the white horse, you know,
and right in and save the day. Oh horse. I
(30:00):
think everyone loves those opportunities, you know, and it's not
And I've always also wanted to run to the airport,
say like, give me a one way ticket to somewhere.
I have time for your body scan. Pretty much That's
how it happened. So she checked herself into a hotel
and I went there and had some nice Cincinnati Skyline chili,
and then the next morning we hit the road. Yeah
(30:21):
that was good. And she hasn't had one since then,
despite like, uh, you know, she she has a lot
of anxiety just as a human, but um, no panic attacks.
So I definitely have seen the things I saw in
this article, and both of them, whether it was during finals,
like the things going on in her life at the time,
we're super stressful. I think the trigger was she doesn't
(30:44):
like see great at night or in the rain when
she's driving, And I think all these things compounded, um
and just played out to where she felt like she
was having a heart attack, and so did my friend.
But I guess we should mention that there are some
tailtale signs of a heart attack. Yeah, that's a big yeah,
that you can recognize the difference, because you don't want
(31:05):
to actually be having a heart attack and be like,
it's just a panic. Just breathe, just breathe while you're dying. Um.
Here are a few tips from the American Heart Association.
Pressure in the center of your chest that persists longer
than a couple of minutes or goes away then returns,
shortness of breath, pain in the arm or upper body,
(31:27):
you might feel nauseous or faint. And of course, if
you're ever in doubt, call because, like you said, you
don't want to be having a heart attack thinking it's
will subside. No, there will be a guy in your face.
Well to say the least exactly. Uh. If you want
to know more about panic attacks and panic disorder type
(31:47):
either one of those sets of words into the search
part how stuff works, and it'll bring up this article.
And since I said that it's time for a listener mail,
I'm gonna call this basement fear. Hey, guys, I know
most listeners know your podcast is great for learning and entertainment,
but I found another purpose distraction from stress induced irrational fears.
(32:10):
That sounds familiar. We were just talking about this kind
of thing. Oh yeah, And I didn't even realize that
when I picked this out. How about that serendipity. Um.
I grew up in a house with a creepy, gross
basement where we did laundry and it never bothered me.
My fiance James, and I recently moved into a house
with a non creepy and non gross basement. But I
think the stress of planning a wedding is getting to
(32:31):
me because when I need to go down into the
basement to do laundry, I nearly have a panic attack
imagining a person lurking in the basement. I've started playing
an episode of Stuff You Should Know on my iPhone
and carrying it in my pocket when I need to
go down to the basement. Stay back Spirit exactly, So
we literally accompanied her into the basement. I think it's hysterical.
(32:51):
I am busy enough enjoying your humor and information that
I don't get as overwhelmed by this irrational fear. I
think it may even be waning now, so I can
see need to make myself go down into the basement
and see that my fear is not really based in
any reality at all. Uh, that's CBT, that's exposure therapy boom.
Also before this weird basement, if you're popped up, I
(33:13):
long called you guys my cleaning crew because I listened
to episodes while doing my chores. And that is from
Kelsey in Kansas City, Kansas, not Kansas City, Missouri, Missouri.
And uh, Kelsey, good luck with that. And um, just
don't look behind that door over near the washing machine.
That's very helpful. Just kidding, Kelsey, there's nothing down there,
(33:35):
and just take us with you. Well, we will protect
you because spirits don't like us. No, the podcast is
coming from inside the house. If you want to get
in touch with Chuck or me, you can tweet to
us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know.
You can send us an email to stuff podcast at
(33:55):
how Stuff forks dot com and has always joined us
at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
dot Com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Hi, everyone. From October to two, fourteen, my Saturday Select
pick for the week. That's how panic attacks work. This
is very sad and serious stuff. Everybody. Panic attacks are terrifying.
They are a real deal stuff. I've never had one.
I've had friends and family members that have had them,
and uh, it's tough stuff. So if you suffer from
(00:21):
them or have friends or family that do, why don't
you give it a listen? And maybe this will help
out or at least bring a better understanding about how
panic attacks work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
(00:45):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Child's w
Chuck Bryant, and Jerry. So it's stuff you should know. Yep,
why it's spread panic? Yeah? Did you see that video? No?
Which one? There was a dude. This is just like
two days ago went up on stage and attacked the band.
Oh no, I didn't see that. Yeah, and they've got
the whole thing. And it was during one of the
(01:06):
really repetitive droning parts of a song. And uh, I
haven't seen an explanation but that there was. I went
to the widespread Panic Facebook thing because it was a
big thread about people talking about it and I just said,
herod people gang violing me, going hero that's hilarious. I
(01:26):
thought it was pretty funny. He attacked the members of
the band, yeah, like physically, and I couldn't quite attack
the drummer and he was upset and I don't know
if that part of the song made him snap, but
it was definitely one of those repetitive thank thank over.
He's like stop. But he was at the show, so
(01:47):
that'd be weird unless he went there to attack them. Yeah,
it was probably the Bath Salts maybe, so, so we're
not talking about that kind of panic. That's more a
psychotic break And this is not widespread at all. It's
very individualized panic, it is, but it turns out people
suffering from this is kind of widespread. How about that?
(02:09):
So it fits a little bit sure. Instead, um, we're
talking about panic attacks and the combination of panic attacks
or the culmination of panic attacks that can lead to
something called panic disorder, and it is a sucky mental
condition that about two point eight percent of Americans, which
(02:32):
is a pretty significant amount of people. Yeah, that's that's
more than bipolar which we've covered in schizophrenia, yeah, and
O c D, which we well, we've covered all three
of those. Um, so that's a pretty significant amount of
people who suffer from panic disorder, right, But that's different
than just plain old panic attacks. Even though to have
(02:52):
panic disorder you have to have panic attacks, but if
you have panic attacks, you don't necessarily have panic disorder exactly.
And I've had two experiences which I'll talk about at
some point through the show, not personally, but Emily had
a panic attack once and uh Frien in college had
a panic attack a roommate and neither one of them
have panic disorders. It was just an isolated incident. Yeah,
(03:14):
so apparently that's I don't know if commons the right word,
but people do have panic attacks and they but they
they that might be the only one they ever have
for their entire lives, I hope. So, which makes the
whole thing kind of mysterious. And we should say, like
science does not know what exactly is going on here.
They have some theories, but there's there's no there's no
(03:37):
way to predict what's happening. They don't even know if
it's genetic or what environmental. Well, they finally isolated a
gene last year, Uh, I guess and go and talk
about that now. In December they isolated the gene and
you know, genes are always so boring with their names,
unless it's a Simmons. That's right. The n k r
(03:58):
T three they think may be responsible, um, because its
presence appears to cause an overestimation of fear and danger
in an overactivation of the hippocampus and amygdala. So basically,
if you have this gene, you're gonna exaggerate your fear overall. Okay,
but it's not like they're saying they've proved that's the cause.
(04:20):
But that is a good step in scientifically in the
right direction. That's a huge step, because I mean that
does sound very much like what a panic attack is.
A panic attack is where you experience a very pronounced
sense of fear and basically your fight or flight symptoms
response and really, from what I can understand, your flight response. Yeah,
(04:44):
like you're not in a position to fight or freeze,
because you know now these days it's fight, flight or freeze.
Really yeah, I don't think I knew that. Yeah there's
a third option now, um like kind of yeah, oh
no way, those aren't options that's a sequence, right, This
is these are a when you're confronted with danger. Nick
Thune or Buddy the comedian, dude, have you seen his
(05:05):
hand of fit ads? Yeah? Those are awesome. Yeah. I
was like, that's Nick Thune and he's on like Miss America. Yeah.
The first thing I always think about is good for
you cash those checks? Baby? Uh yeah. He has that
funny bit on stop dropping rolling, like they they needed
to continue that, like keep rolling. He's like, that's kind
of key. You don't stop dropping roll because you'll be
(05:26):
consumed by fire. You need to keep rolling right until
you get to a door. Yeah, it's very funny stuff.
So this is a little different fight flight or freeze.
Yeah what what's so? How does freeze factor in? Like
you just freeze up and toasts. Yeah, that at least
beneficial of all of the these adaptations to danger. But basically,
(05:47):
when you're when you're confronted with danger, you can either fight, fly,
or freeze. That makes total sense. I don't know why
freeze was never in there to begin with, because so
many people freeze. They just added on the last couple
of years. I think I'm a liar or a freezer
for sure. It depends. I don't know if do you
think there's a personality type. Oh boy, I don't know. Um,
you know, don't you think it's possibly like just what
(06:08):
your body chemistry happens to be doing? Right then? No?
I think some people are more inclined to fight for sure. Okay, Well,
with panic attacks, you're flying like that's your only that's
your jam right there. Um, And you're experiencing it in
the exact same way that somebody's coming to mug you
or has pulled a knife on you and you're running away,
(06:29):
or there's a lion chasing you. Accept and this is
the key to panic attack. There is no lion, there
is no mugger, there's no knife, there's no discernible reason
for you to be experiencing this sudden onset of crippling fear. Um.
But you're experiencing it nonetheless, that's right. No, no tangible
(06:51):
thing happening right in that moment. Right. So when you
come out of it, and these things can they peak
within about ten minutes, but these the symptoms can last
for an hour more. Um. When you come out of it,
you're like, I don't ever want that to happen again.
The place that this just happened to, say, the park
(07:11):
I'm never going back to because now I associated with this.
Because what you're doing when you experience fear, you're learning
to stay away from something. Yeah, So, whether you want
to or not, you've just been conditioned to fear the
place that you just were because you had a panic attack. Um.
And then lastly, you think possibly you're crazy, yeah, or
having a heart attack. Yeah, that's uh. Both both of
(07:34):
the my wife and my friend both thought they were
having heart attacks, which is super scary. And we'll get
the difference later on. But um, I guess we should
talk about just some of the initial symptoms of a
panic attack. The old d s M Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual Mental Disorders lists, Uh, it looks like about ten
(07:54):
symptoms and if you have at least four of these,
you may be having a panic attack, which is heart pounding, shaking, dizziness, sweating, choking,
feeling nausea, shallow or short breath, chest pain, numbness or tingling, chills,
and hot flashes, feeling of unreality, feeling like you're going crazy,
or feeling like you're about to die. You got four
(08:15):
of those, you're having a panic attack. Yes, um, and
if you have four panic attacks within four weeks, or
you have one panic attack and then fear having another
panic attack for about a month or so, then you
can be diagnosed with what's called panic disorder. So, uh,
(08:37):
if you listen to our fear podcast, which was a
really good one, UM, it's kind of the same as
a panic attack. Um, we covered your Your autonomic nervous
system is what maintains all the functions in your body,
the involuntary functions in your body, that is, and it's
gonna take signals from your central nervous system. It's gonna
(08:57):
regulate your organs. That's why you don't have to tell
your heart beat or your kid needs to work. It's
all your pancreas to secrete stuff. That's right. It's your
autonomic nervous system. And it has two parts, the sympathetic
and parasympathetic. And your parasympathetic controls like I said, your
your heartbeat and stuff like that. The normal aspect, Yeah,
(09:19):
it's just like stasis, right, Yeah, that balance that we
all seek that we don't know we're seeking. And then
the sympathetic is if you have that fight or flight,
if you become excited. Uh, in any way, really, that's
when that's going to kick in. Yeah, it's like normal
gear and then high gear. Yeah. But it's not always fear,
you know, just any kind of excitement. Right, you could
be super happy, it could be sexual arousal. That's all
(09:42):
your sympathetic nervous system, right, and those two components make
up the autonomic nervous system, which it kind of switches
from one to the other depending on your state of arousal. Right,
that's right. Um, But when fear has aroused you, um,
your sympathetic nervous system kicks into high gear. Um, and
adrenaline is released, which is a huge factor in causing
(10:04):
the symptoms of a panic attack. Like you start breathing
very heavily and shallowly. Um, your pupils dilate you. Uh.
We always used to say if you're digesting food, you
stop doing that. Basically, all of your energy is transferred
over to either fighting or flying, and in the case
of a panic attack, is transferred over to get you
(10:26):
to be able to run away as fast as possible. Yeah,
which can be a little scary, but in a real
fear situation, if you're in danger, your parasympathetic nervous system
is going to kick in and calm you down. But
that is not what happens, uh in the case of
a panic attack, which is really perplexing. So let's recap this.
A panic attack is when you experience this incredibly intense fear,
(10:50):
so much so that you run away, but there's nothing
there to be afraid of. And then and then, to
make everything a million times worse, your parasympathetic nervous system
doesn't kick in and calm you down like it would
under normal circumstances, so you get to experience this horrible
thing even longer. That's right, all right. So, like I
(11:31):
said before, breaking news from December of last year, they
think they've isolated a gene. Previous to that, they've some
research has said it could be genetic because identical twins
experience it more than fraternal twins, but it's always been
sort of up in the air. They's been contradictions as
well of the genetic basis. They think it's also possibly
(11:53):
epigenetic or environmental like um. Apparently, one study found that
a lot of people who have Pannick disorder had some
sort of traumatic incident happened in their childhood. My friend
from college did, Is that right? So they're thinking like
possibly it had some sort of effect and set up
like a time bomb for later on in life. Yeah,
the stored uh feelings that maybe you've never dealt with
(12:17):
about some traumatic event are gonna they're gonna rear their
head at some point in your life in some way. Yeah.
Or it just rearranged the neural output in your brain
so that one day you're just set up when everything
is just right, that chemistry is flooding your brain in
a certain way, and then bam, it comes out of
nowhere you have a panic attack. Yeah. Another theory is
(12:40):
that they think if you have an over active fear system,
like you've basically have been scared too much in life,
or you're a scared person, then it's just gonna make
it a hair trigger for something to set it off,
which makes a lot of sense. I think it could
be a combo of a lot of things, yeah, as usual. Yeah.
(13:02):
I wonder though what what it will end up being though,
if we'll find that there is one thing that that
leads to this predictably like built up, but then there's
the actual trigger and that's another thing too. So they
don't know what triggers these things. They do know that
a panic attack, being worried about having a panic attack
can actually trigger a panic attack. I feel so bad
(13:25):
for people with panic disorder. This is like a terrible
affliction because you do become very much afraid that you're
going to have another panic attack. So that can set
off a panic attack, but it also can set off
a co morbidity called agoraphobia, where you are afraid to
leave your house, but you're also afraid to be alone.
(13:46):
And I read this, um this article that was from
the eighties seven, and they were saying, like the the Freudists,
the Freudists followers of Sigmund Freud. We're saying, um, oh, well, clearly,
if you're in a gooraphobic you don't want to go
outside because that's where sexual desire is, and you don't
(14:07):
want to be alone because you're worried that you will
like abuse yourself. So agoraphobia. And everybody went boom, sit
down and shut up. Yeah and um, So nowadays they
have realized that agoraphobia is almost almost exclusively the result
of panic disorder. Yeah, and it's because you you fear
(14:32):
the place that you had a panic attack, so you
don't want to go there again. And then maybe it
happened again at the grocery store, so you don't want
to go there, and it happened, but you don't want
to be alone, but you don't want to be around strangers,
so you clean to your family members. And now all
of a sudden, you're not living your life anymore. You're
developing phobias because of your panic attacks in your association
with them. Like if you're on an elevator and you
(14:54):
have a panic attack, you're not getting on an elevator again.
You've just developed a phobia for elevators. And so all
of a sudden, you're not going to be working at
a place where you might normally work because you have
to take the elevator to to get there. Or you
develop a love of stairs, right, but then what if
you're you don't like confined spaces at all, like a
stairwell either. Yeah, have you ever been locked in the
(15:15):
stairwell you're at the building? Yeah, I mean you just
walked down however many flights until you're at the lobby.
Oh you can get out down there? Yes? Okay, yeah, yeah,
you're not actually locked in you just have to walk
all the way down to usually just call you and
say let me. Another theory is that when you're super tired,
um and overworked, was when a lot of times when
(15:38):
these are set off, your brain is producing sodium lactate
or c O two and when those levels increase, your
brain uh says you know what, I think you're suffocating
and so I'm going to send a signal to get
you a lot more oxygen. And I found this, uh
really sad case of this woman, a university student who
(15:59):
died from a severe asthma attack like three days ago. Uh.
And she had had a history of asthma and then
told the medics that she was going through like final
exams and she had been having panic attacks uh for
in the weeks like proceeding. So breathing is a huge
(16:19):
part of panic attacks and as evidenced by her, if
you have asthma, it's can be deadly, which is super
super scary. And said yeah, Um. Then one other I
guess there's a neurological basis they believe for people who
have panic attacks, people who suffer from panic disorder tend
to have fewer serotonin receptors and apparently also um gabba
(16:44):
which helps us get to sleep. It's called a gamma
immuno beautyic acid. Let's call it gabba gabba. Um. Those
two have some sort of role in UM panic disorder.
You don't have enough serotonin and your body is not
producing enough gabba, you may be prone to panic disorder. Uh.
(17:06):
They You know, there isn't like a specific type of
person that necessarily gets a panic attack. It can happen
to anyone, but um, usually it happens if in you
you're in your twenties, although they say kids can get
it as well. Have a panic attack or a disorder. UM.
Twice as many women have a panic disorder developed one
as men, which is pretty interesting. Um. And like you said,
(17:29):
just the fear like having had one before, that fear
can lead to more. So it's very cyclical. Yes, and
you know, um that one paper from seven I can't
tell if it was arguing in favor of panic disorder
being like an evolutionary adaptation and like possibly beneficial, or
if they were saying, like some people think this, can
(17:50):
you believe this? But they were. One of the points
that this guy made was well, twice as many women
have panic disorders as men. So clearly it's an evolutionary
adaptation because women wouldn't have had to have gone as
far away from camp while they were gathering food as men.
Men couldn't stand to have a panic attack, or they couldn't.
(18:13):
It wouldn't be an adaptation for men, it would be
for women. Plus, women can't run as fast when they
have kids to carry, so they need to be on
alert a little more. It's just smelled like bunk yeah, bunk, Yeah,
that's that was a big year for bunk. Yeah. Um,
if you do have a panic disorder, you may have
a hard time getting your family to understand it. Um.
(18:37):
Sometimes they overreact and think it's like way more severe
than it is. Um. Sometimes they underreact and say, uh,
you know, it's all in your head, like just calm down. Um.
But either way saying boy, you're nuts or you just
need to relax, neither one of those is going to
help out the loved one. Chill out. There's no lion.
(18:58):
It wasn't. One thing I've learned in arguments and fights
with my wife is and I'm boil. Learning this early
on is saying telling someone to relax never causes someone
to relax. No, it's like the worst thing you can
do if something's heated is to say just relax. It
is true, that's just gonna ramp it up. So that's
(19:19):
my advice for couples out there in any relationship. Really,
it's good advice, Chuck, thank you. Um. There is a
silver lining to all this in that panic disorder is
actually highly treatables. The treatments that they've come up with
are pretty successful, and we will talk about those treatments
right after this. All right, So you mentioned that they
(19:55):
are treatable. They have found success rates through medication and
therapy which seemed to be about the same as far
as how affective they are, between sixty and nine of
the time. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's not bad at all.
So that's the good news. So there's three there's three
UM typical methods of treatment UM antidepressants, anti anxiety pills,
(20:17):
and therapy. And you might use them, you know, independent
of one another, in conjunction with one another. I also
saw beta blockers. Some people use beta blockers to treat them,
but they're not quite sure what's going on with that.
I've used those before live performances. Those are the ones
I read about that, Um, you gave me one, and
I was like a useless worm. Yeah, it didn't affect
(20:38):
me like that. I I was, I just like totally
lost my personality. I wasn't nervous, but I didn't do anything. Well.
I've gotten used to live performing now, so I don't
need them anymore. But I got that tip from apparently
a bunch of musicians, like in symphonies and stuff use
and I was like, well, if first chair of violinist,
if it's good enough for them to give me some blocks. Yeah,
(21:01):
but it worked for me. But like I said, overall
that I enjoy being on stage now. So with SSR eyes,
which is what you moved on too, from beta blockers, right, No,
I'm not on it. So with SSR eyes, Um, those
are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and they do exactly what
they sound like. You've got a bunch of serotonin receptors
(21:22):
in your brain. If you have panic disorder, you may
have fewer serotonin receptors in your brain. Serotonin is a
neurotransmitter that helps basically stabilize your mood by either causing
a neuron to fire or inhibiting a neuron to fire
in this really beautiful, perfectly balanced chemical reaction. Right, So
(21:42):
if you have a few of these receptors the normal
you're going to be comparatively out of balanced. What an
SSR I and antidepressant does is it allows the serotonin
to kind of stay in your synaps is a little
longer than as normal, so that you are releasing a
little more serotonin then you would under normal circumstances. And
(22:03):
it's proven pretty effective for UM, for panic disorder. Yeah.
I mean they'd work wonders for a lot of people
for a lot of reasons, UM, but not everyone, and
they can cause a lot of negative side effects. Uh.
So obviously you know, work with your doctor on a program,
and it takes them a little while, like two to
four weeks to begin working, uh for a panic attack. UM,
(22:26):
an anti anxiety drug like xan x might be a
little more effective because that is immediately hits you. It
is a tranquilizer benzo diazepine, right yeah, and it's um,
you know, the zanex is going to help chill you
out immediately. But you can get hooked on those things
pretty quick. Yeah, and they're dangerous to quit cold turkey
(22:49):
and UM, Yeah, it's it's not the best thing to
go to zanex a lot. Well, yeah, they say that
you should. Um basically, if you if you under take
an ssr I regimen, you can conceivably stay on it
for years. If you undertake anti anxiety or benzo diazepine regimen, like,
(23:10):
it shouldn't last for more than a couple of weeks
or month from what I understand, because of the dependency.
And again you want to like really do all of
this with like a um, qualified competent doctor's assistants, not
a doctor's assistant, doctor's assistant. It depends. If it's a
qualified competent doctor's assistant who can write prescriptions. Trust, go
(23:34):
for it, that's true. Uh. And then there's therapy, of course,
the old CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, which we've talked about
a bunch but um, that is Uh, they're gonna sort
of the process is going to play out like this.
They're gonna teach you about your panic disorder, which is
a big step. If you understand something, uh, you can
(23:54):
overcome it more easily. I think they're going to monitor
you and you're gonna self monitor and cord your symptoms.
And when they happen, and why they happen, what the
circumstance was. Breathing, like we mentioned, is a huge part
of it. Um Anything from meditation to just regular breathing
exercises which will give you some tips on that in
a minute too, are going to help you out. And
(24:15):
then the old exposure two uh situations. Then this is
once you've rethought, like you're what your approach is going
to be, Like, here's your new outlook, and now here's
a situation that might give you a panic attack. How
do you feel, yeah, Or like if you had a
panic attack and an elevator, like they may tell you
to imagine you're in an elevator, your therapy might progress
(24:37):
until you're actually in an elevator and you're chilling out.
And the hope is that if if you can undergo
exposure therapy to that degree, it will get you over
your panic attacks. In general. Another aspect of it, Chuck,
is rethinking uh, and that is basically accepting the fact
that you have panic attacks. Apparently, if you can say
(25:00):
I'm having a panic attack or I have panic attacks,
and you acknowledge it to yourself and to other people,
it immediately turns down the volume on the whole thing. Yeah,
I noticed some similarities in uh, someone guiding through someone
through an LSD trip and guiding someone through a panic attack.
It's interesting. A lot of it is like understanding, like
(25:21):
I am having an acid trip, I am not having
a good time. It's the same thing as I'm having
a panic attack, and this is no good And if
I understand that, then I can calm down more easily,
and keeping it in just lead you to freak out
more exactly. Um. So that's CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. And um,
(25:41):
if you if you undergo therapy and you're still suffering
from panic attacks. The apparently being discouraged as a real
problem with people with panic disorder because you can still
suffer them even if you're doing everything right. Um. And
so a lot of people have learned to cope, and
there's some any common coping techniques for a panic disorder.
(26:03):
And like you said, the heart of the whole thing
is breathing. Like when you suffer a panic attack, you
start breathing shallowly and quickly, and um, you can hyperventilate.
What you want to do is breathe from your diaphragm
and that you can actually practice this in the times
when you're not having a panic attack. Yeah, if you're
a singer, you know how to breathe with your diaphragm.
(26:25):
But if you're not, what you can do is lie
down on your back, put some pillows on your head
and knees and um, put a hand on your stomach
and a hand on your chest, and then practice breathing, uh,
and making your hand on your stomach move without the
hand on your chest moving, and then tap the hand
on your stomach while you make a circle with the
(26:46):
hand on your chest. When you're really advanced, it's pretty impressive. Uh.
And then another thing you can do is just literally
like put a weight on your stomach and make sure
too heavy. No, like a book. Sure, yeah, look a
nice at something that you can see going up and
down when you're breathing with your diaphragm. That's right. Um,
(27:08):
And you want to just kind of breathe in the
good exhale the bad. Yeah, like I'm having a panic attack.
This will pass, you know, this will subside. This is
a temporary feeling. That's what you should be saying to yourself.
And if you're a person who's like out in public
and you see somebody having a panic attack, you basically
want to do the same thing that they're trying to
do for themselves. You want to remain calm. You want
(27:29):
to tell them that it's going to be over with
pretty soon, that everything's okay, they have nothing to fear. Um. Yeah,
you don't want to tell them to chill out, though. Uh.
Guiding someone through relaxation is different than saying chill out,
by the way, right, very different. Uh. They do recommend
that you, um, if you have a problem with with
(27:51):
attacks in general, or if you have a disorder, you
should exercise a lot. You should practice. Um. They don't
call it meditation, but that's really what it is. Is
is deep breathing and relaxation. It's called mindfulness these days,
isn't it. I don't know. I think that's what they
call it because meditation turns people off probacus. Interesting. Uh
cut cut out the caffeine and sugar and nicotine. Yeah,
(28:14):
that's not gonna help you at all, uh doing all
those things. Uh. And you know, if this stuff is
stuff that's building up inside of you, which it often is,
learn how to express yourself a little more and um
and talk about your issues Um, I know that in
both of my cases. My buddy in college, it was
during finals week and I had gone to bed and
(28:36):
my roommate and another dude had were out in the
living room staying up, and one of him came and
woke me up and he's like, dude, he's having a
heart attack. He's having a heart attack. And um, I
didn't know anything about panic attacks. So we took him
the hospital, of course, and that's all it was. It
was a panic attack. He calmed down. I think, um,
I think they might have given him something there. I
(28:56):
met some sort of medication to calm him down. Probably
Benzo dis Yeah, probably like a good shot in the
arm of that stuff, and he was like, I'm fine. Right.
With Emily's case, she had been under a lot of
stress and was and driving back from Akron, Ohio to Atlanta.
I think she went to get I think she want
to get some furniture or something. So she was in
(29:18):
a truck, like a moving truck, had been drinking caffeine
like crazy like she does, and um, basically, uh started
to have trouble breathing on the highway, going like eighty
down the highway and had to pull over. Called me,
and you know, I calmed her down. I was like,
all right, now, let's get back on the road. See
how you do. She got back on the highway and
(29:39):
immediately freaked out again. And uh, I flew to Cincinnati
and went to a hotel and drove her home. Yeah.
I mean there was really no choice at that point. Uh,
you know, when it's your wife, you plus, it was
a good opportunity to get on the white horse, you know,
and right in and save the day. Oh horse. I
(30:00):
think everyone loves those opportunities, you know, and it's not
And I've always also wanted to run to the airport,
say like, give me a one way ticket to somewhere.
I have time for your body scan. Pretty much That's
how it happened. So she checked herself into a hotel
and I went there and had some nice Cincinnati Skyline chili,
and then the next morning we hit the road. Yeah
(30:21):
that was good. And she hasn't had one since then,
despite like, uh, you know, she she has a lot
of anxiety just as a human, but um, no panic attacks.
So I definitely have seen the things I saw in
this article, and both of them, whether it was during finals,
like the things going on in her life at the time,
we're super stressful. I think the trigger was she doesn't
(30:44):
like see great at night or in the rain when
she's driving, And I think all these things compounded, um
and just played out to where she felt like she
was having a heart attack, and so did my friend.
But I guess we should mention that there are some
tailtale signs of a heart attack. Yeah, that's a big yeah,
that you can recognize the difference, because you don't want
(31:05):
to actually be having a heart attack and be like,
it's just a panic. Just breathe, just breathe while you're dying. Um.
Here are a few tips from the American Heart Association.
Pressure in the center of your chest that persists longer
than a couple of minutes or goes away then returns,
shortness of breath, pain in the arm or upper body,
(31:27):
you might feel nauseous or faint. And of course, if
you're ever in doubt, call because, like you said, you
don't want to be having a heart attack thinking it's
will subside. No, there will be a guy in your face.
Well to say the least exactly. Uh. If you want
to know more about panic attacks and panic disorder type
(31:47):
either one of those sets of words into the search
part how stuff works, and it'll bring up this article.
And since I said that it's time for a listener mail,
I'm gonna call this basement fear. Hey, guys, I know
most listeners know your podcast is great for learning and entertainment,
but I found another purpose distraction from stress induced irrational fears.
(32:10):
That sounds familiar. We were just talking about this kind
of thing. Oh yeah, And I didn't even realize that
when I picked this out. How about that serendipity. Um.
I grew up in a house with a creepy, gross
basement where we did laundry and it never bothered me.
My fiance James, and I recently moved into a house
with a non creepy and non gross basement. But I
think the stress of planning a wedding is getting to
(32:31):
me because when I need to go down into the
basement to do laundry, I nearly have a panic attack
imagining a person lurking in the basement. I've started playing
an episode of Stuff You Should Know on my iPhone
and carrying it in my pocket when I need to
go down to the basement. Stay back Spirit exactly, So
we literally accompanied her into the basement. I think it's hysterical.
(32:51):
I am busy enough enjoying your humor and information that
I don't get as overwhelmed by this irrational fear. I
think it may even be waning now, so I can
see need to make myself go down into the basement
and see that my fear is not really based in
any reality at all. Uh, that's CBT, that's exposure therapy boom.
Also before this weird basement, if you're popped up, I
(33:13):
long called you guys my cleaning crew because I listened
to episodes while doing my chores. And that is from
Kelsey in Kansas City, Kansas, not Kansas City, Missouri, Missouri.
And uh, Kelsey, good luck with that. And um, just
don't look behind that door over near the washing machine.
That's very helpful. Just kidding, Kelsey, there's nothing down there,
(33:35):
and just take us with you. Well, we will protect
you because spirits don't like us. No, the podcast is
coming from inside the house. If you want to get
in touch with Chuck or me, you can tweet to
us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know.
You can send us an email to stuff podcast at
(33:55):
how Stuff forks dot com and has always joined us
at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
dot Com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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